Tag Archives: Louisville

I was at last night’s game in Cameron Indoor Stadium, in which Duke thrashed Louisville, 82-56. I covered the Blue Devils in 2011-2012 and so had seen numerous games in the justly legendary building, but there’s something very different about sitting in the stands. It’s not just that I was literally on the other side of the court from press row, nor that I was with some friends who had kindly invited me. The whole feel of the experience is different; the eyes see differently; one’s investment is different. The specifics of the action on the court yield to a broader absorption: swaths of play; looks on players’ faces and attitudes of body language; and those almost mysterious rises and falls in collective intensity level that are like weather systems passing in quick time lapse.

Because I’d always gone straight into the press room when I was covering Duke, I had never thought to take the time to visit Cameron Indoor Stadium’s museum/shrine to Duke basketball and varsity sports generally. We arrived rather early and had some time on our hands, so we wandered through it. The one exhibit I’ll never forget was what I took to be an artist’s heroic rendering of basketball shoe at an approximately 2:1 scale, about the size of a small dachshund. As I moved closer and read the placard, I discovered that it was an Actual. Shoe. Worn. By. Jahlil. Okafor. You know what they say about men with big shoes. Continue reading The Tobacconist, Vol. 5→